a) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for bleeding fowl, and more specifically to a method for efficiently bleeding fowl in dressing the same. The word "fowl" as used herein means poultry birds such as broilers, ducks, geese or turkeys.
b) Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, dressing and processing work includes various steps conducted at a processing plant, such as killing, bleeding, plucking, gutting (evisceration), and cutting-up of eviscerated and chilled fowl into big portions, leg meat, breast meat, tenderloin meat, wings and wing tips, and the like.
The killing and bleeding in the above-described steps are generally performed by severing the carotid arteries of live fowl. This severing of the carotid arteries of the live fowl would however result in the occurrence of much damages such as wing and wing tip breaks because the live fowl move wild immediately after being severed. Accordingly, bleeding has been conducted for many years by conveying live fowl through an atmosphere of carbon dioxide gas to anesthetize them and then severing the carotid arteries of the fowl.
This method is however scarcely used these days, because it is accompanied by a high cost due to the use of carbon dioxide gas and a need for larger facilities although it can avoid damage to fowl such as wing and wing tip breaks.
In place of the above-described method, another method is used nowadays. As disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 2,527,142, an electric voltage is applied across live fowl to stun the same, and bleeding is then conducted. This method has overcome the cost problem of the above-described method and is free of the problem of wing and wing tip breaks, but involves a problem of bleeding not being able to be achieved sufficiently. Described specifically, when fowl bled by this method are dressed in a subsequent step, congested parts and blood spots of various sizes remain in deboned meat such as breast and tenderloin, leading to a problem that the quality of the deboned meat is substantially lowered.
The occurrence of such a problem seems to be attributable to occurrence of a sudden and abrupt rise in blood pressure within the live fowl and consequent rupture of blood capillaries upon stunning the fowl by applying an electric voltage thereacross. Concerning the problem of congested parts and blood spots of various sizes remaining in deboned meat as described above, existence of some congestion in the surface of fowl may not be a serious problem in Europe and America where fowl is distributed in the form of eviscerated fowl. However, in Japan where fowl is distributed primarily in the form of portioned meat, deboned meat with such congested parts and blood spots still remaining therein is classified as a low-grade product, leading to a serious problem.